


Isaac Newton Didn't Say How Much The Apple Could Make You Worry

by Isis_McGee



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Aunt Peggy Carter, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Kid Tony Stark, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 18:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6577126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis_McGee/pseuds/Isis_McGee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief look at the relationship Peggy Carter had with Tony Stark throughout the years. </p><p>Aka: Five times throughout her life that Peggy Carter worried about Howard Stark's son, Tony, and one time she didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Isaac Newton Didn't Say How Much The Apple Could Make You Worry

**Author's Note:**

> I used the MCU wiki to try to find specific details for timelines and character histories and the like, so I do apologize if things seem wrong. Also, AO3 wants Jarvis' wife's name to be spelled Anna, but I spell it Ana. Also, also, I love Howard Stark as a character, but it's canon even in the MCU that he wasn't a great father, so that's how I wrote him.

Peggy loved Howard Stark, as much as he annoyed her half to death with his recklessness and flippancy, but there were moments when she did not like her friend very much. Watching him with his five year old son was one of those times. Peggy knew Howard loved Tony‒ nothing else would have made him ever take an entire week off work the way he did when he and Maria brought him home from the hospital‒ but now he seemed awfully cold to his child. Roy had loved being with Michael and Samantha both at that age and it was hard for Peggy not to make comparisons. Especially when Tony was enthusiastically telling her all about his plans for his next project‒ because of course Howard’s son was building advanced machines and being as happy about it as normal boys were playing cops and robbers.

“A robot? Really?”

Tony’s dark hair flopped into his eyes as he shook his head. “No, Aunt Peggy, not just a robot, a robot dog! Mom and Dad said I can’t have a real one, but if I could make one‒”

“Tony, how about you go start on that right now, kid? Me and Peg have some business to discuss.” The excitement on Tony’s face fell and he nodded solemnly at his father.

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled. Peggy’s heart broke, just a little and she couldn’t keep from stopping Tony before he left the room.

“Are you leaving without giving your Aunt Peggy a hug?” she held her arms out and Tony’s smile came back. When his arms were around her, Peggy told him in a stage whisper, “I’ll want to see this robot dog next time I’m here.”

He nodded, his happiness seemingly restored and bounded out the door, presumably to make schematics or blueprints or what have you of something that would be over her head. She smiled fondly as he left.

Howard rolled his eyes at her and she glared.

“You’d do well to remember that this time doesn’t last forever, Howard. Tony will be as old as my children before you know it. Appreciate him being your baby still.”

She tried to make it sound less scolding than it was.

“Peg, I’ve got a company to run- I’ll be glad when Tony’s Michael’s age and can help me with that. I love the kid, but he leaves his half made gadgets around the house for Maria or his nanny, Susan‒”

“Your son’s nanny’s name is Sylvia. Susan was your maid two years ago,” Peggy interrupted flatly.

Howard looked thoughtful. “Why’d we get rid of Susan?”

“Probably because your wife didn’t appreciate you sleeping with her.”

“I never slept with her!” Howard protested. “I may have looked at her a few times when she was working, but you can’t blame a guy for that!”

“Your wife can,” Peggy pointed out.

Howard just waved a hand to dismiss the idea. “Either way, Tony leaves his toys around for Maria to step on or for Sylvia to be terrorized by. He made a contraption that dropped a bucket of water on her head when the door opened.”

Peggy snorted a laugh. “That seems awfully juvenile for him. He’s building robots for God’s sake.”

“No, no, you misunderstand, he rigged something so that whenever the front door opened, no matter where Sylvia was, a bucket of water would hit her. I’m not even sure I know how he did it. And this was six months ago.”

“Howard, you just hired Sylvia six months ago. He must have done that to Joan. No wonder she quit.”

When he couldn’t keep anyone on his staff other than Mr. Jarvis straight‒ that was another moment when Peggy didn’t much like her friend.

“I didn’t ask you here to discuss my son. I wanted to talk to you about a problem I’m having with a formerly Soviet colleague of mine. I’m hoping your contacts with the government through SHIELD will be of some assistance. They don’t seem too fond of me right now.”

Peggy should have known that Howard would have only taken the time to invite her over when he was supposedly in the middle of some breakthrough for her help. She tried not to roll her eyes as she settled in to hear the whole story. In the back of her mind she wondered if Tony had started on his robot dog already or not.

**

Howard and Maria are snowed in on a business trip in Oslo; at least that’s what Howard told Peggy on the phone. “Tony’s at home with Sylvia and is fine, but Peg, we won’t be home for Thanksgiving. I already talked to Jarvis and he said that he and Ana were going to be with you so…”

Peggy was nodding, not thinking about the fact that Howard couldn’t see her. “Tony’s more than welcome here, of course, Howard.” Peggy kept it to herself that she thought Tony’d probably have a more enjoyable Thanksgiving without his parents considering he rarely saw them anyway. She was much less charitable to Howard as time went on, but that would be unnecessarily cruel. Her lack of charity only extended so far, and Peggy could be forgiving; plus, Howard was still a genius and still a valuable colleague for her, even if sometimes she wished she could sock him in the jaw like he maybe deserved.

“Thanks, Peg, you’re a peach. I’m not sure what I ever did to deserve you.”

She laughed. “You’re still a flatterer, even married, Howard.” She could practically hear his smirk as they said their goodbyes.

“I’d already told Tony that he was welcome,” Edwin admitted to Peggy on the phone when she called him. Peggy couldn’t help but laugh at how embarrassed he sounded. “I just wanted Mr. Stark to perhaps think about how he would be inconveniencing Anthony.”

“So you don’t believe that they’re snowed in?” Peggy asked, her voice very carefully neutral.

Edwin Jarvis had been employed by Howard Stark for too long to answer that question.

He and Ana and Tony showed up two days later right on time and dressed better than Roy ever asked his and Peggy’s family to be. Ana smiled broadly and handed Peggy a bottle of wine that Peggy’d had with them and raved about. There was nothing disingenuous about the hug that Peggy gave her in return. Roy shook Edwin’s hand warmly and then turned to Tony to do the same. Tony looked much older than his 11 years as he shook back.

“Thank you for letting me join you while my parents are out of the country,” he said in an obviously practiced voice. It melted Roy’s heart even as Peggy rolled her eyes.

“Oh, Lord, Anthony,” Peggy said with a smirk. He looked embarrassed at the use of his full name, but he stepped into the hug she offered him. “You’re always welcome here.”

“Thank you, Aunt Peggy.”

Even though she had plenty of nieces and nephews on Roy’s side‒ he was one of eight children—there was something that felt even more fitting when Tony called her that. She didn’t want to examine it at all, especially not then, and she ushered the three of them into the dining room.

Michael was with his fiancé’s family for the holiday, but Samantha and her boyfriend, Jonathan, were setting the table. Samantha had a warm smile for Edwin and Ana and if it fell a little bit when she caught sight of Tony, it was barely noticeable. Peggy did the work of introductions for the benefit of Jonathan and then moved to check on the food.

Roy leaned over to stop her, kissing her cheek. “Don’t kid yourself, love,” he teased. “No one here thinks it wasn’t me who cooked.”

Peggy blushed a little, though she had no reason to, and everyone except Tony tittered a bit. Tony narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t worry, Aunt Peg,” he started. Calling her Peg made him sound even more like Howard than he did when he talked about robotics and the variables that would need to be tweaked for wearable technology. “We have our Thanksgivings catered.”

That made Jonathan laugh so hard that nearly everyone else raised an eyebrow at him. It was that reaction that told him Tony wasn’t joking. When Ana told Tony that perhaps he should go wash up a few minutes later, not seeing the way he rolled his eyes back in his head in annoyance, Peggy heard Samantha explain to Jonathan that yes, Tony was Tony of those Starks and yes, that meant what Jonathan thought it did.  

Tony came back with a small smile on his face that showed he was very consciously being polite to his Aunt Peggy’s family and Peggy couldn’t help but see the pride evident in Edwin and Ana’s eyes both. It wasn’t until the adults were drinking coffee and his legs swung back and forth in his chair (he might always be on the short side, Peggy thought) that his politeness seemed to falter. Samantha had gotten up to get dessert and Jonathan smiled at Tony and asked him about school.

When Tony rattled off what they were doing in his AP Physics class and complained about being bored with Mary Shelley’s _Frankenstein_ ‒ which they were reading as part of his Sophomore level English class‒ because ‘it doesn’t make any sense that Dr. Frankenstein would try to use organic matter to reanimate life, because it would break down too quickly, especially with the use of cadavers, when he was clearly supposed to be a good enough scientist to pull off what he did in making a sentient being,” Jonathan’s mouth was unabashedly agape. Peggy did her level best to not laugh at him and Samantha rolled her eyes at the expression. When Tony finished voicing his displeasure in his other classes, Peggy smiled at him.

She cut the pie and gave Tony the first piece. As she served everyone else she asked him, “So what would you think would have worked for Victor Frankenstein?”

Anyone else would have perhaps been afraid of how Tony Stark at 11 years old responded so enthusiastically that it was as though he’d been thinking about creating life for years. Peggy just thought that she had more than likely been correct in her assessment and it was the most positive attention he’d received on a holiday in a long while.

***

Peggy couldn’t stop herself from looking around anxiously, her eyes darting from every corner of the courtyard in hopes of spotting a familiar face and of keeping her cover. She was not supposed to be in Boston, but in New York City. She’d begged the day off work, calling in sick, going so far as to fake it to Roy as well, coughing in bed as he left for work. She wasn’t sure what part of her pride made her try to keep the trip a secret from him, but she didn’t want to explain herself. She and Howard were, after all, in the middle of a sort of professional spat that had lasted for nearly six months at this point. She just wanted him to give more of his time to SHIELD, considering he was a founder and she didn’t trust Alexander Pierce as far as she could throw him despite his meteoric rise in the ranks. Howard couldn’t be bothered though, too concerned with his own company and dismissive of Peggy’s concerns.

But even if she were upset with Howard as a colleague, she couldn’t take it out on Tony and it was his MIT graduation ceremony. It would be the perfect time to apologize to Howard and to congratulate him on having raised someone who might outstrip even his genius. Plus, she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to see Tony happy‒ she wasn’t sure why exactly, but she had a somewhat ridiculous soft spot for the boy though he could be just as insufferable as his father.  It maybe had to do with the flashes of need that she saw break through his façade as a young boy when he didn’t think anyone else saw, or the moments when she could see that he wasn’t his father no matter their similarities; he couldn’t be as self-absorbed.

No matter how self-absorbed Howard was though, Peggy did want to apologize and she didn’t see any reason for her to sit there on her own when she was there for his son. She’d seen Maria in the crowd and waved to her with a smile, but she hadn’t move to join her. She perhaps should have, but Maria Stark had simply turned back around to search through the crowd of gowned soon to be graduates.

Peggy’s brow furrowed as the ceremony began and she still hadn’t found Howard. The furrow deepened even more when the college’s Dean got to where Tony’s name should have been and didn’t say it.

She headed back to New York without a word to anyone and spent most of the rest of the day staring at paperwork she didn’t want to do.

The next time she talked to Tony, he’d just publicly joined his father’s company and sounded tipsy on the phone.

“Sorry, Aunt Peg, I’ve had some champagne,” he told her, his voice sounding giggly. She smiled indulgently though he couldn’t see it. “It’s nice you came to see my graduation. I would have gone had I known you were going to be there. I mean, Rhodey‒ my friend, Rhodey, James Rhodes he’s a grad student there, coming from the Air Force academy, I think I’ll be able to convince him to help the company, if he isn’t too busy being bitter about how much smarter I am than him and well, everyone‒” Peggy snorted, but it didn’t deter Tony one bit. “We were working on something and he wanted a beer and well, I wasn’t going to leave him on his own.”

Tony left out that he didn’t think his father would be there anyway, and neither he nor Peggy acknowledged that, nor how correct he was.  

****

Underneath the sadness that she felt, underneath the absolute devastation that took her over knowing that one of her oldest surviving friends was no longer of this earth,  Peggy was absolutely livid. It was Howard Stark’s funeral and the paparazzi and the well-wishing public had shown up in droves, but through her tears, Peggy had yet to see the one person she expected to be at the front of the crowd. Tony was nowhere to be found.

Roy held Peggy’s hand as she dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief with the other. He leaned over to whisper when the pastor paused to take a breath. “Where’s Tony?”

It just made Peggy cry harder and Roy squeezed her hand.

She listened to the pastor wax poetic about Howard’s genius and his contributions to America as an inventor and war consultant throughout the years, how his company helped keep men safe for years, how he exemplified the American spirit and the taste in her mouth was bitter. She didn’t disagree with anything the pastor said, but he didn’t say anything about how warm Howard could be on a good day, or how much he loved his friends though he didn’t want to show it, or how much he could make someone laugh. He’d had such a reputation that all of the rest of it got lost and Peggy had no room to mourn her friend‒ she could only mourn the monument that was the head of Stark Industries. It just wasn’t fair.

And it cut her to the core that she was the only one there who felt that sting. Maria had died with him, and Jarvis had been gone for five years at that point, succumbing to leukemia that Peggy had had to convince herself wasn’t one of her mission’s faults‒ Peggy was the only one of them left. She had been becoming convinced that she would be the absolute last one left who remembered the war.

Thinking that way made her throat feel tight. It was hard to get air into her lungs, knowing that nearly everyone was gone. Howard was gone and there was no one there to remember him as a man with her. Even a man like Obadiah Stane, who claimed to have been Howard's friend, knew him as a business partner before anything. She choked out a sob in the middle of whatever the pastor was saying.

“Are you alright?” Roy asked. Peggy shook her head and let go of his hand.

“I can’t do this, darling.” She didn’t mean to say it, but it came out. She hated how much her emotions colored her words, but her husband was the only one who heard it. He just nodded and let her stand up. Her hands tried to hide her face as she made her way out of the sunshine of the service‒ it felt wrong that the weather was so bright and beautiful when the last of everything seemed to be falling apart on Peggy. She was so grateful for Roy to be by her side, but he had never known Howard like she had.  She breathed a deep sigh that tried to hide her tears when she reached the mansion‒ only Howard would have a will that specified his funeral should be at one of his houses. Thankfully it wasn’t a house that Peggy had frequented; it was one she knew her way around enough to find the bathroom, but she had no memories that debilitated her as she made her way there.

It was still enough that she was lost in her own thoughts as she pushed the door open.

“For God’s sake, Anthony!” she bellowed when her eyes finally caught up to her brain and she saw that Tony was holding some blonde woman against a wall.

Tony whipped his head around and to her credit, the woman he was holding up let her eyes widen in shock. Tony let his hands drop and the girl caught herself as she fell. Peggy had never seen Tony look as terrified, and that meant something for him. She tried not to feel anything for him because of it but she failed. The blonde slid her shoes fully back onto her feet and it didn’t take anything for her to look embarrassed and slip out of the bathroom.

Peggy was across the room and had her hands on Tony’s shoulders in no time flat. She shook him and her fingers dug into his skin, her grip still iron tight even at 70 years old. Being that close to him, Peggy could smell that Tony was completely and entirely tanked. His red eyes weren’t just from tears. His pupils were huge and she hadn’t wanted to hit someone this much in years. Her hand itched she wanted to so badly; she just shook him more.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “And zip your pants up!”

Tony’s hands fumbled with his fly. “Please, Aunt Peg‒”

“Don’t you ‘Aunt Peg’ me, Anthony! Not today! Not now, Tony! Not when your parents are being buried and you’re in a bathroom with some floozy high as a kite!”

Her voice cracked as she yelled at him. She felt tears stinging in her eyes and her fingers tightened on his shoulders enough that he winced.

“Peggy, I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was choked too. “I’m so sorry. I just. I can’t do it.” He bit his lip and Peggy eased her grip on him. He finally looked up and met her eyes. He made a face like he was about to go on but then he wiped at his nose and looked down at his hand with widened eyes. There was blood under his nostril and on his hand.

Peggy started to cry as she grabbed toilet paper and shoved it at Tony.

“How many things have you put into your body?” She didn’t want to sound as defeated as she did, but her words were broken as they left her mouth. Tony shrugged around pressing the paper to his bleeding nose. Peggy’s voice softened as she went on, anger being swallowed up by worry and sadness. “What are you on?”

“I drank half a bottle of scotch. The decanter Dad‒ Howard‒ left in his office here. I took a couple bumps of coke and a half a Valium too,” Tony admitted. Peggy looked stricken and after a moment Tony began to laugh. It was muffled by the paper still, though neither of them knew whether or not Tony’s nosebleed had stopped. “I should feel worse than I do, right?”

Peggy stepped forward with her eyes sympathetic. She remembered reading different tabloids talking about Tony’s substance issues, not sure whether she believed them considering he was helping the company and his father so brilliantly. Now she knew they’d been real.

“But, for the first time, he won’t get mad at me for drinking his booze.”

With that quip, Tony’s knees gave out and he landed hard on the floor as he started to sob. Peggy had him wrapped in her arms in seconds. Howard had once told her that he wasn’t sure his son was capable of crying, because he had too many ideas in his head to worry about dwelling on anything that would make him cry. As he broke down with her and her own tears mingled with his on her dress front, she hated Howard for being wrong for once. She would have given nearly anything not to have to hear the anguish coming from Tony and she wondered how he was going to get through this when he so clearly thought he was alone. It was too late to explain to him that he wasn’t, so she just held him as he cried like a boy who just lost his parents, and not like a genius about to inherit a multimillion dollar corporation. Right then, that’s all he was and Peggy wanted to be there for him however she could. She’d want that for the rest of her life, no matter how angry he could make her.

*****

Peggy had the news on, as she usually did when was cleaning. She had a cleaning woman, but she still liked to tidy up her own house between the monthly appointments. At 87, even though she was in miraculous shape for her age, she still wanted to do something to keep moving; it wasn’t as though she could join the front lines in Iraq or whip new privates into shape to do so. Mopping her kitchen once every two weeks, along with trying to see how long she could stay on the recumbent bike, was just a little of what she could do to keep herself from falling apart. Because she was wringing her mop out, she was paying only so much attention to the news headlines, until she heard a familiar name

“And we are receiving reports that an American convoy in Afghanistan carrying Tony Stark, CEO of the weapons company Stark Industries, was attacked today. While there have been five confirmed casualties, Stark is not among them. He is unaccounted for, though the military is not presuming dead. This is true for two other members of the convoy. We here hope and pray for a safe return for those missing and send our condolences for the families of the dead.”

Peggy stopped listening to whatever came next.

She hadn’t seen Tony in years, though she’d heard plenty about his antics in the news and she knew that he was keeping Stark Industries in just as good of shape, if not better, than Howard had before him. Peggy knew the number of protests that were held because of the company, but she had seen too many men be completely ruined during the war not to understand the need for weapons and if Tony were able to make weapons that could make a statement, she didn’t begrudge him that, even if she did worry for his mental well-being; he was, after all, the exact definition of a war profiteer and that had consequences.

But now, those consequences extended to being either dead in a war zone or being a prisoner of war. Peggy had never in her long life hoped that someone she loved was a prisoner of war, but in that moment, she prayed that Tony was alive and could survive whatever he was being put through. She didn’t want to consider the alternatives, not when she’d had to bury so many people she cared about, including her own son. She couldn’t stand the thought that she would have to mourn for Howard’s son as well, especially when she’d said goodbye to too many people without a real gravesite nearly 70 years ago.

“Oh, Tony, get home safe,” she said out loud before she thought about it. She shook her head and went back to her cleaning, knowing she wouldn’t be thinking of anything else for the next week at least.

******

For the first time in years, Peggy was not worried about Tony Stark when she heard his name on the news. She knew he could take care of himself‒ he’d proven that when he’d turned himself into a bona-fide superhero in a cave in Afghanistan‒ but there was an army of aliens attacking New York and he and his new building were front and center.

Yet, she knew that for the first time since then, there was someone more foolhardy who would be willing to take the lead.

“I hope you can take care of each other,” she muttered at the TV as she watched coverage of Steve Rogers, back from the dead by some miracle, taking point with a number of other  people who were heroes in their own right. Her mouth curved into a smile after a moment of watching the group take down one hostile after another. She maybe didn’t have to worry about Tony like she had, but she perhaps had to worry about he and Steve wanting to kill each other considering how like his father he was. Peggy was glad to see that Steve, too, had to deal with two generations of Starks. She would be sure to rib him about it when he came to see her and she'd remind him that it could be a wonderful thing.


End file.
